


In Memoriam

by Ducarion



Category: Rogue Agent - K.E. Mills
Genre: Armed Forces Day 2020, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24771958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ducarion/pseuds/Ducarion
Summary: Monk miscalculates and takes Melissande to the Annual Memorial Ball. Exposed to someone without investment in his country's history, he struggles to explain why anyone should care about the dead.
Relationships: Melissande/Monk Markham
Kudos: 1





	In Memoriam

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Armed Forces' Day 2020.

“Why do I let you take me anywhere, Monk Markham?”

<\p>Monk gingerly removed his arm around Melissande’s shoulder. “What do you mean?” he said defensively. “I invited you here, didn’t I?”

“Only because I told you. You were going to just tell me on the day and drive me to the door!”

Monk shrugged. “You could have said no.”

“I most certainly could not!”

“But you like these sort of things! You’re a princess!”

“Oh, so that makes dragging me out here alright?” Melissande asked acerbically. “Because I am a princess?”

And because you said so!”

“I said that I liked parties. Balls. Dances. Not an hour of speeches followed by the dreariest, gloomiest conversations known to mankind.”

“Mother and Father weren’t able to come, so I had to. It’s not like I forced for to come.”

Melissande glowered at him and stepped away a little more. She flicked her rusty locks in his direction. “You failed to inform me about the particulars. I don’t care about stinking great monuments, or Ottosland’s musty old wars,” she said imperiously. “New Ottosland had no involvement in such things, and needs none. Why should I care about your wars?”

“It’s everyone's history,” Monk said helplessly.

“Not New Ottosland’s.”

That was true, Monk supposed. He had never given a thought to the old colony before Gerald had announced his employment there. It had been too distant, and too minor, for anyone to bother with during the war. Monk doubted that Melissande would appreciate Monk saying this, though. “They all died for us... well, me at least. I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t,” he admitted, thinking of the guilt in his mother’s eyes every time she told him that her father had survived what so many others had not. “It's kind of like what Gerald does now,” he tried. She seemed unmoved. “Do you really not care about this at all?”

She shrugged, distressingly Bibbie-like. “All I know is that I could be down at the agency doing some work, rather than sitting on your wrist in front of all these society hags.” 

“Look, I know it’s old news-”

“A hundred years old.”

“But there’s still things that can be learned from this!”

“Like what?” she demanded.

“It's my history. These men died for everyone else here. The least you can do is respect them. Given what your brother tried to do-”

“Shut up, Markham, ” Melissande hissed dangerously. 

“Give me one good reason why I should stay here and pretend to celebrate your imperialistic hubris.” When he didn’t answer, she turned, and flounced towards a waiter. 

“I suppose I’ll see you in a few glasses, Monk,” she called over her shoulder. “If I’ve got to be here, I’ll hob-nob with the Ottish nobs my way. I’m still a princess when it suits me, I’ll have you know!”

Trying to avoid following Melissande and earning further charges of ‘molly-coddling,’ Monk drifted in the opposite direction through the park, towards the monument.

The new monument, the supposed cause for the evening's celebrations, was an imposing stele made of quartz-veined granite, each side mounted with gleaming bronze plaques. There had been quite a furore over the monument in papers when the proposed designs had first been revealed. A large and vocal proportion of the population had preferred the option of a mirror-smooth finish with the names of the dead engraved directly into the stone, and Monk had been forced to listen to Reg loudly and combatively declaim both views, and many others beside, before the mangy old bird became bored and started suggesting how Gerald could organise building monuments for her old kingdom's people instead.

Lord Temperance and Sir Grayton, both business partners of Monk’s parents, greeted him and made desultory conversation when Monk passed them, but he managed to quickly excused himself. They both preferred to talk to his brother, who had made it quite clear that he would be inheriting those interests, so once Temperance pressed a drink into his hand, Monk moved on, joining the group on the lowest step, staring up at the monument. 

Monk had to blink twice before he could confirm what he was seeing.

“Sir Alec?!”

“Mister Markham,” Sir Alec acknowledged, his tone dry but not impolite. He was standing slightly apart from the rest of the party-goers, wearing an incongruous royal blue frock-jacket that was made of some fluttering light fabric reminiscent of Fandawandi silk. “How good to see you here, honouring our fallen dead.”

Monk felt his cheeks redden reflexively. “Now see here,” he said, fighting the urge to look around for Melissande again and channelling her confidence instead, “you can do what you like when I’m working. Order me until kingdom come. But right now, I’m- I’m here in a private capacity.”

Sir Alec’s fingers flicked at his ice-grey collar. “What makes you think that I am not, also?”

Monk froze. “Sir?”

“Am I not allowed to spend my own free afternoons as I wish?” A pause. Then Sir Alec sighed, and frowned once he caught Monk’s expression. “It is merely unfortunately coincidence that we have met here,” he explained. “I have no desire for your services at the present time.”

Monk didn’t know what to say. He was suspicious. Sir Alec was a suspicious man, inherently so given his occupation, but upon reflection Monk could think of no encounter where the man had lied without reason. Monk was embarrassed to think that he hadn’t even considered that possibility. Of course, Sir Alec must have some sort of private life outside of the Department, but the thought of this life existing anywhere outside of Uncle Ralph's office seemed inconceivable. Still, this was Sir Alec talking, so there was no way to disprove the possibility that that the man was executing a characteristically convoluted double-bluff, Monk shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said warily. “Really, I am.”

Sir Alec shook his head. “Unimportant,” he said briskly. “Well. It was instructive, to say the least.” He went to turn away.

Monk reached out and caught his arm. Then he tried not to shrink away from the stooge’s intense grey gaze. 

“Yes?” Sir Alec asked, as cold as a glacier. 

“Sir Alec, why are you here, then, if it’s not for me, if you don’t mind me asking? This doesn’t seem your sort of place.”

Sir Alec raised an eyebrow. “I was invited,” he said.

Monk’s jaw dropped. “You were?” he asked. No-one would waste their plus-one invitation to a party like this on a 'minor’ government official, except... “Uncle Ralph?”

“No. If you had been listening in the dedication, rather than been engaged in thaumaturgical dreaming, you might have caught the name of my grandfather.”

Monk made to respond to the insult, then sighed. He had been trying hard to stop Melissande giggling during the dedication. At the time, he had thought that she was just uninterested in the celebration in general, but after her distain had been made clear earlier it was more likely that she had behaved that way on purpose. Monk wasn’t Reg or Bibbie, though, and had still been able to keep one ear open for the speech. He could not pretend this wasn’t the case, however. Momentary ratification wasn’t worth antagonising Gerald’s boss. “Oldman... Graham, was it?” 

“Gregory. Brigadier Gregory.”

The name brought back memories from his mother’s history, comfortably ensconced in her favourite armchairs by the fire. “The man in charge of the fifth invasion of Lanruvia,” Monk remembered. “I mean, the first successful one. Didn’t he get a knighthood for it?”

Sir Alec nodded, and Monk fought down another flush. Of course. Given the sensitive nature of his position, it was obvious that Sir Alec had to have inherited his title, rather than receive it in recognition of his efforts, but Monk was used to associating with ennobled families, and had not made the connection.

Monk hesitated, but asked anyway: “What relation was he to you again?”

“Grandfather.” Sir Alec’s tone was unreadable

“Did you ever... know him?”

This was awkward, but given their situation Monk felt that he had the right to ask. And, dare he think it, Sir Alec looked as if he might be willing, or even wishing, to talk about it.

Sir Alec pinched his nose. The momentary thawing of his manner disappeared. Maybe it had been a figment of Monk’s imagination, after all. “If you would pay a little more attention before you speak, I am sure we would all appreciate it immensely. Since he died on the front lines a century ago next year, it seems rather unlikely Mister Markham.”

Monk ducked his head in embarrassment. Sir Alec never failed at making him feel small. “I’m sorry,” Monk repeated, trying to inject his sincerity into the tone, since words clearly would not do. “He got a posthumous knighthood, for bravery. A, a medal too. I remember now.”

When Monk looked up, Sir Alec’s eyes had softened slightly. “Still unnecessary,” he said. His tone had not changed at all, but his hands were folded into his sleeves. “I never knew him, Mister Markham. I have no more claim to his life or activities than you. I was simply offered the invitation to come to this memorial. Honour our fallen. And...” A deep, world-weary sigh. “There are some things which remain the same across the ages.”

Monk bowed his head, deciding it was best to agree with the sentiment in silence. His family might have been spared any deaths in the war, but many Markhams had fallen in other conflicts, and the last few years had opened his eyes to the amount of suffering that existed today.

“Loath as I am to admit it,” Sir Alec said hesitantly, “I believe that your memory, faltering as it is, honours my grandfather too. I am... grateful for your support.” Suddenly still again, Sir Alec straightened the lapels of his jacket. “Mister Markham,” he said, “it has been nice to speak to you. Good day.”

Sir Alec walked smartly away, leaving Monk standing at the foot of the looming edifice, staring up at the serried ranks of gleaming names.

Monk hardly noticed with Melissande returned, until she cleared her throat and held out a glass, Melissande returned, two wine-glasses in her hand. He took it.

Melissande broke the silence first. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. The tone did not suit her, but it did fit the situation, and Monk’s mood. “I suppose that I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s just that, what with leaving the agency and having to come out here like this again, I...” She swallowed. “I miss home. It’s funny, isn’t it? I hated it so much, sometimes. I hated Lionel making me stay. But when I see all of this and realise how close it is to what I left behind, and different...” A sigh. She nudged him with her shoulder companionably. “What I’m trying to say, and making a real dog’s dinner of it, is that I’m here for you Monk. I don’t understand your traditions, but if I'm going to be here, with all of you, for the long haul, then I’m going to try.”

Monk ripped his gaze from the statue with a false smile plastered across his face that gradually became real as he drunk in the way her hair had sprung loose from its elaborate pinning, so that several frizzy strands fell across her face. The vibrant hue of her hair contrasted vividly with the monument behind her. Melissande was alive, and even when she was angry she was perfect. “It’s alright,” he said, leaning into her and closing his eyes, trying to burn that image into his mind. “It doesn’t always mean anything,” he admitted, “but it means something to me.”

“You can tell me about it later... if you like.” She put her hand on his elbow, and despite the setting their was nothing coy about her touch. She was reassuringly genuine. “I’ll try to listen. We can go now, if you like.”

“You just want to leave. You said so earlier.”

“Yes,” Melissande admitted shamelessly. “But I also want to listen to you.”

Monk closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, breathing in the smell of the river that even the best perfumes could not hide. Her hand on his elbow was a constant pressure, and the warm glow of the lamps shone through his closed eyelids. Monk thought of hours spent in the study, his mother helping him to read dusty letters and carefully unfold the precious wrinkled sketches that his grandfather had sent back. How that had made him feel so much closer to his grandfather than any dry history book. How even the emotionless Sir Alec felt that connection with the grandfather that he had never met.

Monk turned to Melissande with a watery smile, and took her hand.

He met her eyes. “I'd like that,” he said.

She smiled too.


End file.
